NORTHAMTON, Mass. – Four of the five Massachusetts General Hospital representatives were introduced at Cooley Dickinson’s Annual Meeting, Oct. 29 as the newest members of the CDHCC Board of Trustees. While introduced in late October, they became members of the Board when the acquisition of Cooley Dickinson became official July 1, 2013.

Appointed were Michael Blute, Sr., MD; David Brown, MD; Tony James; Elizabeth Mort, MD; and Peter Slavin, MD. Below, learn more about each of the new Trustees.

Blute received his bachelor's degree from the College of Holy Cross in 1973 before matriculating at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. He received his medical degree from Creighton University School of Medicine in 1982, completed a residency in Urologic Surgery at Mayo Clinic, and then joined the faculty there in 1987. He spent two decades at Mayo Clinic Cancer Center, serving as Chair of Urology from 1999 to 2006, the Dr. Anson L. Clark Professor of Urology, Mayo Medical School, and a member of the Mayo Clinic Board of Governors 2006-2009.

Before coming to the MGH, Blute was the director of the Cancer Center of Excellence at UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester and was interim chief of the Division of Urology in the Department of Surgery there.

Blute has served as co-investigator on research grants in clinical oncology, genetic susceptibility in cancer, and chemoprevention. He specializes in radical prostate surgery and urinary tract reconstruction after bladder cancer surgery.

David Brown, MD
David Brown, MD, the chief of the MGH Department of Emergency Medicine, grew up in Amherst, graduated from Princeton
University in 1985, and received his medical degree from Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons in 1989.
He completed his training at MGH and is a diplomate of both the American Board of Emergency Medicine and the American Board of Internal Medicine.

An accomplished clinician, scholar, teacher, mentor and administrator, Brown lectures nationally and internationally on topics related to cardiovascular emergencies, his primary academic concentration. His innovative work in emergency department process redesign has been published, widely cited, and emulated.

Brown leads new initiatives for the MGH ED, including the implementation of electronic patient tracking, electronic physician order entry and documentation, and the redesign of patient triage and screening. He has been recognized by his residents with multiple teaching and mentorship awards and has been nationally honored as well, in 2002, with the ACEP National Faculty Teaching Award and in 2011 with the EMRA National Teaching Award.

Tony James
Tony James is vice president of Network Development at the Massachusetts General Hospital, a position he has held since 2006. Prior to joining Mass General, James was vice president of Product Strategy at Fidelity Investments. Additional experience includes consulting and leadership roles at ZEFER, Waite & Company, and APM-CSC and Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield.

He completed a master's in Public Administration, Health Policy, Science and Technology Policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and is a graduate of Stanford University. In addition, James is the chair of the Boston Arts Academy Board, a public pilot arts high school.

Elizabeth Mort, MD, MPH
Elizabeth Mort, MD, MPH is senior vice president for Quality and Patient Safety and chief quality officer for the Massachusetts General Hospital and Massachusetts General Physicians Organization; she leads the Edward P. Lawrence Center for Quality and Safety.

A practicing primary care physician, Mort also served as vice president for Quality and Safety from 2007 to 2012 and has been the associate chief medical officer for the MGH since 2000.

A graduate of Harvard Medical School, Mort completed her residency in internal medicine at MGH and did a fellowship in Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School. She is an assistant professor in Medicine and in Health Care Policy at Harvard.

At the MGH, Mort has developed several quality management programs and raised the standards of quality and safety throughout the institution. A fierce advocate of transparency, she also led the effort to create quality websites for MGH as well as for Partners HealthCare.

Peter L. Slavin, MD
Peter L. Slavin, MD became the president of Massachusetts General Hospital on Jan. 1, 2003. From 1999-2002, he served as chairman and chief executive officer of the Massachusetts General Physicians Organization, which included more than 1,700 physicians and employed nearly 1,000 of them.

From 1997 to 1999, Slavin served as president of Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, MO. Before that, he did his training in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital from 1984 to 1987 and was senior vice president and chief medical officer from 1994 to 1997.

Slavin graduated from Harvard College in 1979, Harvard Medical School in 1984, and Harvard Business School in 1990.

Slavin teaches internal medicine and health care management at Harvard Medical School, where he is a Professor of Health Care Policy. He lectures widely on topics including quality and utilization management, the economics of teaching hospitals and the state of physician practices.

Slavin serves on the board of the Massachusetts Hospital Association and on the board of the Council of Teaching Hospitals of the Association of American Medical Colleges. He also serves on the overseers board of the Geisel School of Medicine.